Various power converters are presently available for transforming an unregulated input voltage to a regulated output voltage with a specific magnitude. Various power conversion techniques such as forward and flyback are well described as the prior art. Although the advantages of current mode control over voltage mode control has been amply demonstrated, slope compensation must generally be added in the current loop to solve instability problems. Many texts explain the operation of current mode and the required slope compensation, such as (a) Keith H. Billings "Switchmode Power Supply Handbook" McGraw-Hill Book Co., p3.148-p3.150 (b) Abraham I. Pressman "Switching Power Supply Design" McGraw-Hill Book Co., p105-p136; p143-p165. (c) "Modelling, Analysis and Compensation of the Current-Mode Converter" Unitrode Corp. Application Note U-97 (d) "Practical Considerations in Current Mode Power Supplies" Unitrode Corp. Application Note U-111. However, there still exist several drawbacks in conventional slope compensation techniques. Thus, in order to remedy these drawbacks and improve performance, mathematical analysis and practical circuit tests have been performed to establish the fundamentals of this invention. The characteristic analysis of conventional slope compensation are listed as follows,
(A) Advantage I: Slope compensation stabilizes the current loop
A general circuit of a conventional current mode power converter is shown in FIG. 1, and its symbols defined are:
Pwr: power converter T.sub.M : power transformer
N.sub.P : primary turn ratio of T.sub.M N.sub.S : secondary turn ratio of T.sub.M
L.sub.P : primary inductance of T.sub.M L.sub.S : secondary inductance of T.sub.M
I.sub.P : primary current of T.sub.M I.sub.PP : primary peak current of T.sub.M
I.sub.PA : primary average current of T.sub.M I.sub.S : secondary current of T.sub.M
I.sub.SP : secondary peak current of T.sub.M I.sub.SA : secondary average current of T.sub.M
T: switching period of Pwr T.sub.ON : turn-on time of T
T.sub.OFF : turn-off time of T V.sub.O : output voltage of Pwr
V.sub.IN : input voltage of Pwr V.sub.SL : voltage of slope compensation signal
Verr: output voltage of the error amplifier
V.sub.RP : sensed voltage of resistor R.sub.P
There are two distinctly different operating modes of power converters, discontinuous and continuous. When higher power conversion efficiency is concerned, the continuous mode is much more widely used than the discontinuous mode. However, the power converter exhibits instability in continuous mode generally. The purpose of the following analysis is to determine the criterion for stabilizing the current loop in which a minimum magnitude of the slope compensation has to be added, if the power converter is operating in continuous current mode or if the duty cycle of the power converter is greater than 50 percent. Slope m is the down slope; m=dIs/dt=Vo/Ls . FIG. 2 shows the continuous mode current waveform, Ip and Is. I.sub.SA =I.sub.SP -(dIs/2)=I.sub.SP -(m/2).multidot.dt; I.sub.SA =I.sub.SP -(m/2).multidot.T.sub.OFF ; I.sub.SP =I.sub.SA +(m/2).multidot.(T-T.sub.ON). The peak voltage V.sub.RP across the primary current-sensing resistor R.sub.P is V.sub.RP =I.sub.PP .multidot.R.sub.P =I.sub.SP .multidot.(Ns/Np).multidot.R.sub.P = I.sub.SA +(m/2).multidot.(T-T.sub.ON) !.multidot.Ns/Np).multidot.R.sub.P. Adding the slope compensation to V.sub.RP, this feedback signal is stated as V.sub.C =V.sub.RP +(V.sub.SL /T).multidot..DELTA. T=V.sub.RP +(V.sub.SL /T).multidot.(.DELTA. T.sub.ON +.DELTA. T.sub.OFF); ##EQU1##
Since an amount of energy delivered in a time period T represents power, at the end of one period, power drawn from V.sub.IN is P=L.sub.P I.sub.P.spsb.2 /(2T)=L.sub.P .multidot.(I.sub.PP.spsb.2 -I.sub.PA.spsb.2)!/(2T). But I.sub.PP =I.sub.PA +.DELTA. I.sub.P =I.sub.PA +(V.sub.IN /L.sub.P).multidot..DELTA. T, and thus ##EQU2##
The current I.sub.PA is an energy which cannot completely deliver to the load during the off time (T.sub.OFF) and still remain in the transformer. Thus the magnitude of the current I.sub.PA is related to the T.sub.OFF and T.sub.ON. It is easily verified from equation (2), that the feedback loop regulates the output of power converter by controlling T.sub.ON. The output voltage Vo is sensed and compared to a reference voltage in the error amplifier (EA). The amplified error voltage Verr (voltage loop signal) is fed to a voltage comparator and compared with the Vc (current loop signal). As shown in FIG. 1, the on time starts at the clock pulse of oscillator (osc) and ends when the Vc ramp equals the level of Verr, thereby the adjustment of T.sub.ON is proportional to the magnitude of voltage Vc and Verr. Mathematically the relationship between Vc and T.sub.ON is .differential.V.sub.C /.differential.T.sub.ON .gtoreq.0. The deviation from equation (1) can be stated as ##EQU3##
This can be seen quantitatively as ##EQU4##
If the change of T.sub.ON is not proportional to the Vc, .differential.V.sub.C /.differential.T.sub.ON &lt;0, then the feedback loop will oscillate non-linearly. Thus the criterion of equation (3) must be satisfied to insure loop stability.
(B) Advantage II: Slope compensation improves the linearity of the current loop
Before adding the slope compensation, the signal Vc is equal to V.sub.RP : ##EQU5##
Equations (2), (4), and (5), demonstrate that when the output power remains constant, the T.sub.ON increases and .DELTA. I.sub.P decreases as V.sub.IN goes down. The current waveform corresponding to the V.sub.IN and T.sub.ON is shown in FIG. 3. The current feedback loop signal compared with the voltage feedback loop signal will control the output power and regulate the output voltage. It is obvious the control loop will lose linearity and immunity to noise as V.sub.IN goes down. This disadvantage can be improved by adding the slope compensation. ##EQU6##
The slope compensation element remains a minimum linearity of the control loop.
(C) Disadvantage I: A dummy load or the minimum load is required to avoid the unstable oscillation during no load or light load conditions.
The conventional mode power converter will operate in discontinuous mode while the output is in no load or light load conditions and may operate in continuous mode while the output power is high or the input voltage is low. A minimum magnitude of slope compensation must be added as equation (3), as long as the power converter operates in the continuous mode. While the power converter is operating in discontinuous mode, its slope compensation included current feedback loop signal Vc is ##EQU7##
This signal waveform is shown in FIG. 4: illustrating a nonlinear deviation in the power control. If the signal Verr goes down due to the regulation, its voltage move from point C to point A or point B will cause a nonlinear deviation. Since the voltage level of point A is equal to point B, but the on time (T.sub.ON) of point A and point B is different, difference is (T.sub.ONB -T.sub.ONA) causes a deviation P.sub.d in the power control. ##EQU8##
Because of this, an oscillation commences at every change in signal Verr which may continue for some time. Two conventional approaches for solving this problem are (a) To equip with a dummy load in the output. This yield I.sub.P .multidot.R.sub.P &gt;(V.sub.SL /T)! during the no load or light conditions. However this will consume the power of the dummy load. (b) To require consuming a minimum power in the load. However this cannot meet the requirements of power management. The goal of power management is to manage the system to only consume power during the operation such that no power, or little power is consumed during the non-operation (sleep mode). With respect to the power converter in a power management application, conserving power in the no load or light load conditions is a major requirement.
(D) Disadvantage II: Less than ideal line voltage regulation
Consider how the power converter regulates against line voltage changes. As V.sub.IN goes up, the Vo will eventually go up. Then after a delay in getting through the voltage feed-back loop, Verr will go down and the output voltage will be brought back down. Besides the mechanics of this, there is a shortcut correction in the current mode operation. As V.sub.IN goes up, the slope of current Ip increases and hence the slope of the ramp of V.sub.RP increases. Now the steeper ramp equals Verr and the on time (T.sub.ON) is shortened. Output voltage changes resulting from input voltage changes will be smaller in amplitude and shorter in duration because of this feedforward characteristic. The output voltage Vo is ##EQU9##
By using equation (7), if Vc=Verr, then ##EQU10##
It can be seen that the loop gain of this feedforward characteristic will be reduced by increasing the magnitude of slope compensation V.sub.SL /T. Thus, increasing the magnitude of slope compensation will decrease the loop gain of the current feedback loop and then reduce the capability of line voltage regulation.
FIGS. (5) and (6) show two conventional methods of implementing slope compensation. These methods, however, are unable to solve the problems in the previous description and are unable to operate under wide input ranges (V.sub.IN).